Wednesday, April 16, 1986
Bud's Barber Shop
Burd Monroe "arches" the eyebrows of Dorothy Greene, 747 New Jersey St. Arching is the shaping of a woman's eyebrows with a razor. Few barbers or beauticians shape women's eyebrows using this method anymore. Monroe said.
More than a hundred photos of black athletes, each in its own carefully hung frame, line the cream and green cinderblock walls of Bud's Barber Shop.
As the collection has grown over the years, Waldo "Bud" Monroe has squeezed together the fading pictures and painted around them.
Some of the faint autographs on the photos proclaim Monroe's talent as a barber, others as a checker player. Wilt "The Stil" Chamberlain paid tribute to both.
In a corner behind the old hand-cranking barber chair, a picture of Monroe in his KU police uniform and several diplomas from law enforcement schools attest to his accomplishments as a police officer.
Chamberlain's photo is close to the door. So Is Jo Jo White's. These aren't special places, however. Other athletes, although less famous, aren't any less important to Monroe.
Some of the athletes come by and visit when they're in town.
"There are always some dropping by." Monroe said.
"They'll come in and surprise me."
For almost 50 years, 62-year-old Monroe has been a part-time barber. For 30 years, including the last 21 with the KU police, Monroe was a policeman. He retired Feb. 21 as a lieutenant.
It wasn't any surprise that Monroe became barber for the black athletes of KU and other schools. There is little doubt that he is a great sports fan, but Monroe didn't have to seek out the athletes.
They had to come to his shop — they were black. White barbers wouldn't cut a black man's hair, and Monroe was one of the few black barbers in Lawrence.
When he was young, he became a barber out of necessity.
So he and his younger brother cut each other's hair. His brother got the better end of the deal, and Bud became his son.
In 1948, Monroe's younger brother enrolled at KU. He wanted to compete on the track team. When he wasn't allowed to join the team because he was black, he joined the Air Force. He went on to win medals in armed forces competition around the world.
Meanwhile, Bud was still cutting hair. In the late 1950s, he opened his shop at 532 Michigan St.
Memories of football players, basketball players and track athletics flow easily once Bud starts talking. A handy Jayhawk record book fill in the dates that escape his memory
That's him way in the back at the end of the second row, he said as he pointed to an athlete wearing No. 44.
The oldest photos in Monroe's collection are from the 1950s. Blocks weren't allowed to play for KU before then.
"KU straddled the fence when it came time to do it," Monroe said of integration at KU.
LaVannes Squires was the first black allowed on the KU basketball team, Monroe said, and he had to endure the fans' taunts. Racists in the stands often called the Javahaws the Black hawks.
Monroe remembers, with a certain amount of relish, an incident in which a Missouri player shoved Squires.
"Clyde Lovellie took up for him. Knocked his block off. Morroe said, shaking his head as a grin creeped out on him."
"All the guys played; couldn't none of them beat me." Monroe said.
would talk about sports and Lawrence and would sometimes play checkers.
When the athletes came by his shop, Monroe said, they
He met more athletes while he was working as a KU police officer. The opportunity to watch sports while
working was a nice fringe benefit, he said
It wasn't until the social unrest of the late 1980s that white barbers in Lawrence finally agreed to cut blacks' hair. When they did, some didn't do a good job, Monroe said.
Black people's hair is not harder to cut, he said, but white barbers didn't really want to cut it or learn how to cut it.
When blacks got bad haircuts, he said, they'd sometimes come to him asking to repair their hair at no charge. He would tell them to go back to the original barber.
When he went to barber school in the mid-1950s, Monroe said, white barbers were not taught how to cut black people's hair. But black barbers were required to learn how to cut white people's hair.
"You want equal rights, go get 'em," he'd say.
When Bud grew up in Lawrence during the 1930s, segregation was pervasive. Not until the late 1940s did some of the grade schools and the high school completely desegregate their athletic teams. Monroe said.
Lawrence High didn't allow blacks to play on the football team and there were separate basketball teams. Track was the only integrated sport.
Monroe played guard for the Lawrence High basketball team. The team played in the building that now houses Central Junior High.
The black team practiced at night while the white team practiced after school. The teams never traveled on the
"They went their way, and we went ours." Monroe said
It wasn't just an unstated racism either; it was organized, with separate state championships for blacks and whites.
"The prejudice was here." he said.
Times and hair styles have changed. Blacks can get their hair cut by white barbers now.
The athletes don't come by as often, but sports remain one of the favorite topics of Bud and his customers. Like many fans, he loves to complain about the officials.
"It looks like I'm destined to be with people," Monroe said.
Little kids are the best, he said, even when they squirm.
"Some of them you just can't sit still," he said.
One chairside manner taught in barber school was to not discuss, just like at cocktail parties, the Bible and politics, Monroe said.
Football and basketball games are over when they are over, but religion and politics are something you carry to your grave, he said.
When Monroe built the shop with the help of friends, he designed it so it could be rented as a bachelor's apartment if the shop didn't pay off, he said.
"I was never convinced that I could make more barbering than I could worked," Monroe said.
Although he has retired, he said, he doesn't plan to slow down. The shop will stay open and the steady customers will continue to come even when he changes the hours or hangs the "Gone hunting" sign. The hours of Bud's Barber Shop have always changed according to the shift he worked.
Fixing up a rental house and repairing the barber shop come first, he said, and he will find a part-time job if he isn't busy enough.
"It's been quite a life," he said. "Quite a life."
He wants to "keep the fat down," he said
Story by Brian Whepley Photos by Wilfredo Lee